DEFENSE OF MARRIAGE ACT ruled unconstitutional by SCOTUS

As we say here in Carolina, HAIL YEAH!!!


From NBC NEWS:

Supreme Court strikes down Defense of Marriage Act, paves way for gay marriage to resume in California
By Pete Williams and Erin McClam, NBC News

In a landmark ruling for gay rights, the Supreme Court on Wednesday struck down the Defense of Marriage Act, the 1996 law blocking federal recognition of same-sex marriages.

The decision was 5-4, written by Justice Anthony Kennedy. It said that the law amounted to the “deprivation of the equal liberty of persons that is protected by the Fifth Amendment.” In a separate case, the court ruled that it could not take up a challenge to Proposition 8, the California law that banned gay marriage in that state. That decision means that gay marriage will once again be legal in California.

That decision was also 5-4, written by Chief Justice John Roberts.

The ruling on the Defense of Marriage Act means that the federal government must recognize the gay marriages deemed legal by the states — 12 plus the District of Columbia, before the California case was decided. The law helps determine who is covered by more than 1,100 federal laws, programs and benefits, including Social Security survivor benefits, immigration rights and family leave.

“DOMA instructs all federal officials, and indeed all persons with whom same-sex couples interact, including their own children, that their marriage is less worthy than the marriages of others,” the ruling said. It added that the law was invalid because there was no legitimate purpose for disparaging those whom states “sought to protect in personhood and dignity.”

President Barack Obama, in a post on Twitter, said that the ruling was a “historic step forward for #MarriageEquality.”

Kennedy was joined in the majority by the four members of the court’s liberal wing, Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Dissenting were Roberts and Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito.

Scalia, in his dissent, wrote: “We have no power to decide this case. And even if we did, we have no power under the Constitution to invalidate this democratically adopted legislation. The Court’s errors on both points spring forth from the same diseased root: an exalted conception of the role of this institution in America.”

Cheers went up outside the Supreme Court, where supporters of gay marriage waved signs, rainbow banners and flags with equality symbols.
The ruling comes as states are authorizing gay marriage with increasing speed and with public opinion having turned narrowly in favor of gay marriage. Under the law, gay couples who are legally married in their states were not considered married in the eyes of the federal government, and were ineligible for the federal benefits that come with marriage.

The case before the Supreme Court, U.S. v. Windsor, concerned Edith Windsor and Thea Spyer, a lesbian couple who lived together in New York for 44 years and married in Canada in 2007. When Spyer died in 2009, Windsor was hit with $363,000 in federal estate taxes. Had the couple been considered by the federal government to be married, Windsor would not have incurred those taxes. Kennedy, in the ruling, said that New York’s decision to authorize gay marriage was a proper exercise of its authority, and reflected “the community’s considered perspective on the historical roots of the institution of marriage and its evolving understanding of the meaning of equality.”

President Bill Clinton signed the act into law in September 1996. A court ruling in Hawaii had raised the prospect that that state might become the first to authorize gay marriage.

At the time, some members of Congress believed that the Defense of Marriage Act might be a compromise that would take the air out of a movement to amend the Constitution to block gay marriage.

LOLGOP just Tweeted: "Life would be so much better if Antonin Scalia just had a blog."

Ain't it the truth. Today, however, he just has to stand aside and DEAL WITH IT. Let the preachers all go cover themselves in ashes and sackcloth and REPENT--because their grandchildren will be as ashamed of them as southern white kids are now ashamed of their racist segregationist grandparents.

We will be covering this on our radio show today, so stay tuned.

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#WhenIseeaObamabumpersticker brings out the vicious, good Christians

(you can click all Tweets to enlarge)

As many of my regular readers know, I have nearly been run off the road several times for my (old, obsolete) Obama bumper stickers... and I did not even vote for Obama in 2012 (voted for Green Party candidate Jill Stein instead). Nonetheless, those scary bumper stickers remain, because I refuse to be intimidated, and my car is old besides (but paid for!). Thus, when I saw the Twitter hashtag #WhenIseeaObamabumpersticker (excuse bad grammar, but what did you expect?), I admit that I reacted very strongly to the right-wing, racist bullies who came out of the woodwork to trumpet their bullying... the kind of bullying I have been dealing with for 5 years now.

Not surprisingly, they are damned proud of themselves.

When called on it, haha, it's suddenly a 'joke'--although at least some of them admit they are dead serious.

I know that the people who have repeatedly tried to run me off the road, tailgate me dangerously on interstates while shooting the bird, etc, are/were VERY serious, and not at all joking. And as they angrily pass me, they often show me their Dubya/Romney/anti-abortion/pro-NRA/anti-gay marriage (et. al.) bumper stickers as well--just in case there is any question WHY they feel moved to behave like maniacs.

Needless to say, I have never tried to run any of THEM off the road, nor flip them off, nor in any way act like a goon simply because they disagree with ME. Nor would I. But then, I am not a bully, and I have never understood the psychology of bullies. They really would have been quite at home in the old Soviet Union, which jailed all dissenters. They value ideological lockstep.

Further, I noticed that when I checked out several of these people's self-descriptions... virtually all of them claim to be BIBLE-BELIEVING CHRISTIANS! Do you believe that?!? (well, of course you do) They trash the poor while claiming to believe in the Messiah who said Blessed are the poor and the poor we always have with us. The Messiah who said, as ye do to the least of these, so have you done to me. The One who said, The Last shall be first. When I dared comment on this gross theological discrepancy, they found it amusing and re-tweeted me. HAHA!--this bitch expects me to actually LIVE WHAT I CLAIM TO BELIEVE, IS THAT FUNNY OR WHAT?!

Yes, I suppose it is.

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Glenn Greenwald verbalizes my worries about gay rights

Yesterday it was announced by the LGBT Pride Celebration Committee, that Wikileaks whistleblower/political prisoner Bradley Manning was selected as one of the Grand Marshals of the yearly San Francisco gay pride parade, considered a high honor in the gay community.

Almost immediately, Lisa L Williams, president of the Board of SF Pride, wrote a statement retracting his nomination:

Bradley Manning is facing the military justice system of this country. We all await the decision of that system. However, until that time, even the hint of support for actions which placed in harms way the lives of our men and women in uniform — and countless others, military and civilian alike — will not be tolerated by the leadership of San Francisco Pride. It is, and would be, an insult to every one, gay and straight, who has ever served in the military of this country.

Yes, you read that right. Blowing the whistle on war crimes is an insult to the military.

Glenn Greenwald (who is also gay, for the record) wasted no time in blasting Williams, calling her statement a "substance-free falsehood originally spread by top US military officials, which has since been decisively and extensively debunked, even by some government officials." Greenwald correctly reminds us:

Indeed, it's the US government itself, not Manning, that is guilty of "actions which placed in harms way the lives of our men and women in uniform."

And then Greenwald underscores the incipient fascism (my label, not his) of Williams warning the organization's members that EVEN THE HINT of support for Manning, WILL NOT BE TOLERATED. WILL. NOT. BE. TOLERATED.

Wow.

This certainly is a long, long way from the San Francisco Gay Pride parade I once attended, decades ago, which tolerated (celebrated!) every bizarre, crazy activity and wayward political belief in the world. This had the wonderful result of making everyone feel welcome and giving off a warm, beneficent glow. This event was where I saw the revolutionary Tom Robinson Band, in 1981. (Robinson was an influential, radical gay punk rocker from the UK, who founded Rock Against Racism, a cause I was once allied with myself.) I suddenly realized that me and Tom Robinson probably do not belong in today's gay rights movement, which is now officially aligning itself with the government and trashing a courageous gay man who dares to speak out (and has had his civil rights violated as a result). Tom Robinson and Bradley Manning and Glenn Greenwald (and me) are OUT... apologists for right-wing warmongering like Lisa Williams are IN... it is the wholesale Lady Gagaization of gay rights; the defanging and neutralizing of a once-radical movement that asked the tough questions. Its all razzle-dazzle and the Bravo Network and Will and Grace reruns... nothing that asks participants to seriously question the status quo. (As it was for me, when I was young.)

Depressing.

Further, it isn't just the Lady Gagaization of gay rights, but the corporate sponsorship of gay rights... Glenn Greenwald ticks off the list of glitzy parade sponsors (HERE is the official list) which include AT&T, Verizon, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Clear Channel, Kaiser Permanente... basically the same list of corporate shysters presented by the Occupy Wall Street movement. Greenwald carefully catalogs their sins against the people, and then sputters:

So apparently, the very high-minded ethical standards of Lisa L Williams and the SF Pride Board apply only to young and powerless Army Privates who engage in an act of conscience against the US war machine, but instantly disappear for large corporations and banks that hand over cash. What we really see here is how the largest and most corrupt corporations own not just the government but also the culture. Even at the San Francisco Gay Pride Parade, once an iconic symbol of cultural dissent and disregard for stifling pieties, nothing can happen that might offend AT&T and the Bank of America. The minute something even a bit deviant takes place (as defined by standards imposed by America's political and corporate class), even the SF Gay Pride Parade must scamper, capitulate, apologize, and take an oath of fealty to their orthodoxies (we adore the military, the state, and your laws). And, as usual, the largest corporate factions are completely exempt from the strictures and standards applied to the marginalized and powerless. Thus, while Bradley Manning is persona non grata at SF Pride, illegal eavesdropping telecoms, scheming banks, and hedge-fund purveyors of the nation's worst right-wing agitprop are more than welcome.

And then, Greenwald starts making some interesting connections. Lisa Williams once worked for the political campaign of ... guess who?! President Hopey-Changey himself!* Greenwald reminds us:

It was President Obama, of course, who so notoriously decreed Bradley Manning guilty in public before his trial by military officers serving under Obama even began, and whose administration was found by the UN's top torture investigator to have abused him and is now so harshly prosecuting him. It's anything but surprising that a person who was a loyal Obama campaign aide finds Bradley Manning anathema while adoring big corporations and banks (which funded the Obama campaign and who, in the case of telecoms, Obama voted to immunize).

And finally, Greenwald voices the worries and concerns I have had for years... which it seems are finally coming to pass:

When I wrote several weeks ago about the remarkable shift in public opinion on gay equality, I noted that this development is less significant than it seems because the cause of gay equality poses no real threat to elite factions or to how political and economic power in the US are distributed. If anything, it bolsters those power structures because it completely and harmlessly assimilates a previously excluded group into existing institutions and thus incentivizes them to accommodate those institutions and adopt their mindset. This event illustrates exactly what I meant.

Yeah. And I remember ancient arguments I engaged in, with wacky old reds like the RCP, who warned me that gay rights was cosmetic and would NOT upend the status quo the way I was convinced it would. Were they right, after all?

From Greenwald's piece last month, mentioned above, titled The gay marriage snowball and political change:

If anything, one could say that the shift on this issue has been more institution-affirming than institution-subverting: the campaign to overturn "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" continually glorified and even fetishized military service, while gay marriage revitalizes a traditional institution - marriage - that heterosexuals have been in the process of killing with whimsical weddings, impetuous divorces, and serial new spouses (as Rush Limbaugh might put it: I'd like you to meet my fourth wife). And these changes are taking a once marginalized and culturally independent community and fully integrating it into mainstream society, thus making that community invested in conventional societal institutions.

Notably, Malcolm X also worried about the "buying off" of the black community, in just this same fashion. Some of us have probably forgotten that this was one of the tenets of Black Nationalism, that integration was also a form of neutralization ... and in the process of integration and assimilation, much intrinsic radicalism and core identity can be compromised.

Is the gay community being bought off and neutralized?

Unfortunately, I think so. Faster than you can say LADY GAGA. Or Bradley Manning.

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*This perfect term for President Obama comes from Mister LarryE, aka Lotus, who has a cool blog you should all check out.

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Thursday links

Got copious links for your perusal.

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Did Nikki Haley Kill Climate Study?:

The article in The State [Columbia, SC newspaper] also reported that [John] Frampton [head of South Carolina's Department of Natural Resources] retired in 2012 after conflicts with Caroline Rhodes, then the Chairperson of the Board that oversaw the Department of Resources. Rhodes had been appointed to her position by Republican Governor Nikki Haley. The DNR climate change study pre-dated the Haley administration. Although current DNR officials are claiming that the refusal to release the study is not politically motivated, it's hard to accept their denials at face value. The report was on track to be released until Haley, a Tea Party favorite, was elected as South Carolina's governor and appointed her own people to the DNR Board after assuming office in 2011.

The only logical conclusion is that her administration quashed the climate change report prepared by the state's own scientists based on political considerations.

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Kirk Smalley Found A Mission After the Suicide of His Son:

Smalley’s life has become a mission to stop bullying, and youth suicide. Kirk now spends his days telling his son’s story at schools around the world. He has told Ty’s story at more than 500 hundred schools and has talked to hundreds of thousands of students, teachers, and school administrators since Ty’s suicide nearly three years ago. He said,

We do it because we don’t want another family to live our nightmare. Laura doesn’t ever want another mama to find her baby the way she found ours. We don’t want another kid to ever feel the way Ty felt, that that was the only option. We’re not doing it for Ty. We’re doing it for all the other kids out there. The main part of our message is not to stand silent and watch it happen and that’s addressing the bystanders. If we can empower those kids to be willing to stand up and say ‘you know what – this isn’t right. It’s not funny,’ then we’ll greatly outnumber the bullies. One kid, one voice can make a difference.

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One of my favorite bloggers has called it a day: Renegade Evolution, whom I have written about on this blog before.

Good luck to you, my friend. May the wind always be at your back.

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TOO ADORABLE FOR WORDS! SQUEEEE! AIYEEEE! The San Diego Zoo's panda cub, Xiao Liwu, playing with his little ball during his medical exam.

If you die from cuteness, not my fault, you were warned.

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Obama to urge court to overturn same-sex marriage ban in California:

Government sources say the Justice Department will by day's end articulate a legal position in the so-called Proposition 8 case, a ban by California voters over same-sex marriage that is now being challenged in the Supreme Court. At the very least, the administration will express general support for gay and lesbian couples in that state alone to wed.

That case and another appeal over the federal Defense of Marriage Act will produce blockbuster rulings from the justices in coming months.

Gay rights groups have privately urged Obama and his top aides to go beyond his previous personal rhetoric in support of the right and come down "on the side of history" in this legal fight. Those sources tell CNN that Obama has made the final decision over whether to file a brief and what to say.

As of earlier this week, there was still internal debate among White House and Justice Department staff about whether the president should take the big step and say there is a constitutional right of gay and lesbian couples to wed. The administration was also considering a compromise position -- affirming previous support for same-sex marriage, at least in California, while conceding other states may have the option to ban it.

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Wikileaks whistle-blower Bradley Manning pleads guilty to 10 of the 22 charges against him:

After two months in military jail in Kuwait, Manning was moved to the US Marine brig in Quantico, Virginia, on July 29, 2010. He was held there in maximum security confinement for nearly a year, where he sat alone in a cell for 23 hours per day and was denied a pillow and sheets. An online petition at Avaaz.org received more than 500,000 signatures calling for President Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to "end the torture, isolation, and public humiliation of Bradley Manning." And in February of this year a UN report from Juan Mendez, the special rapporteur on torture, concluded after receiving information from the US government about Manning's treatment that "imposing seriously punitive conditions of detention on someone who has not been found guilty of any crime is a violation of his right to physical and psychological integrity…"

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I heard Toubab Krewe last night, on the namesake of this blog, the indispensable UNCLE DAVE'S DEAD AIR. Loved em! Sharing their musical genius here... apparently, they play frequently at the Orange Peel in Asheville (their hometown), and I am fervently hoping to get up there to see them in the future.

This is an acoustic set recorded live at The Festy Experience, October 2011. Their electric sets are just as impressive.

Acoustic Sessions at The Festy : Toubab Krewe



If you know the names of any of these exotic instruments, please let me know!

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Green Party Livestream show during President Obama's 2013 State of the Union address

The Green Party will be live-blogging the State of the Union address tonight. Included will be my esteemed radio co-host, GORGEOUS GREGG!
Speaking of which, here is the podcast of today's OCCUPY THE MICROPHONE show, on WOLT FM. Our special guest was the amazing Art Goodtimes.



PRESS RELEASE:

WASHINGTON, DC -- The Green Party of the United States will hold a special online GP-TV broadcast during President Obama's 2013 State of the Union address on Tuesday, February 12.

The show, which begins at 9 p.m. Eastern Time and 6 p.m. Pacific Time, will be aired on the Green Party's Livestream Channel (http://www.livestream.com/greenpartyus).

Viewers will be able to participate in a simultaneous chat about the address on the Livestream page and can also call in with comments and questions after the end of President Obama's speech. Craig Seeman and Starlene Rankin will produce and host the show.

Jill Stein, the Green Party's 2012 nominee for President (http://www.jillstein.org), will be a guest on the show via Skype after the President's speech.

Greens and friends will discuss the State of the Union, expectations for the second term of the Obama Administration, and the Green Party's own plans for the coming year. Issues like climate change, which President Obama discussed in his inaugural speech, will get special attention: is the President serious about curbing global warming, or will he approve the Keystone XL pipeline and continue to promote fossil fuel production?

See also:

Facebook page for the Livestream show: http://www.facebook.com/events/250333045092419

"Green Party urges national protest against the proposed Keystone XL and Trailbreaker pipelines"
Green Party press release, January 31, 2013
http://www.gp.org/press/pr-national.php?ID=583

MORE INFORMATION

Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org
202-319-7191

Contacts:
Scott McLarty, Media Coordinator, 202-904-7614, mclarty@greens.org
Starlene Rankin, Media Coordinator, 916-995-3805, starlene@gp.org

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General Petraeus and the Neo-Con connection

This is like something from one of us crazy conspiracy theorists.

Seriously, you can't make this stuff up.

From Chris Matthews at MSNBC:

Fred and Kimberly Kagan are hawks. They share the ideology of those who backed the Iraq War. Why are they on the inside of an administration elected based on its opposition to the Iraq war?

I am one of those who believed from square one that the war in Iraq was an ideological war pushed from the outset by those who wanted us to overthrow the Iraq government and install ourselves in Baghdad. They got their way under a less-than-informed President, George W. Bush. Now we discover that a pair of them, the Kagans, have been right there in the room with the head of the Afghan mission, advising him every step of the way.

Why? Why did General Petraeus assume the right to allow people who represent the very opposite of President Obama’s philosophy to advise him? What agenda was his seeking here? What was he buying into? Was he buying into the hawkish agenda of those who advocated war on Iraq in the first place? If so, why was he working for President Obama who stood out there against that war?

I have to think that Petraeus either doesn’t understand politics and ideology or he shapes his ideology, or accepts the ideology of those who have stood against Obama from the beginning. This is really strange, really strange and someone in the administration better start paying attention to who is getting into the tent and who they are indeed working for.

Kimberly and Frederick Kagan are very interesting people indeed, close to the American Enterprise Institute and similar neo-con hit-squads. As Matthews asks, why were they "advising" Petraeus?

The Washington Post has the whole timeline of neo-con infiltration of the Obama administration:

Frederick and Kimberly Kagan, a husband-and-wife team of hawkish military analysts, put their jobs at influential Washington think tanks on hold for almost a year to work for Gen. David H. Petraeus when he was the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan. Provided desks, e-mail accounts and top-level security clearances in Kabul, they pored through classified intelligence reports, participated in senior-level strategy sessions and probed the assessments of field officers in order to advise Petraeus about how to fight the war differently.

Their compensation from the U.S. government for their efforts, which often involved 18-hour workdays, seven days a week and dangerous battlefield visits?

Zero dollars.

Although Fred Kagan said he and his wife wanted no pay in part to remain “completely independent,” the extraordinary arrangement raises new questions about the access and influence Petraeus accorded to civilian friends while he was running the Afghan war.

Petraeus allowed his biographer-turned-paramour, Paula Broadwell, to read sensitive documents and accompany him on trips. But the entree granted the Kagans, whose think-tank work has been embraced by Republican politicians, went even further. The four-star general made the Kagans de facto senior advisers, a status that afforded them numerous private meetings in his office, priority travel across the war zone and the ability to read highly secretive transcripts of intercepted Taliban communications, according to current and former senior U.S. military and civilian officials who served in the headquarters at the time.

The Kagans used those privileges to advocate substantive changes in the U.S. war plan, including a harder-edged approach than some U.S. officers advocated in combating the Haqqani network, a Taliban faction in eastern Afghanistan, the officials said.

The pro-bono relationship, which is now being scrutinized by military lawyers, yielded valuable benefits for the general and the couple. The Kagans’ proximity to Petraeus, the country’s most-famous living general, provided an incentive for defense contractors to contribute to Kim Kagan’s think tank. For Petraeus, embracing two respected national security analysts in GOP circles helped to shore up support for the war among Republican leaders on Capitol Hill.

Fred Kagan, speaking in an interview with his wife, acknowledged the arrangement was “strange and uncomfortable” at times. “We were going around speaking our minds, trying to force people to think about things in different ways and not being accountable to the heads” of various departments in the headquarters, he said.

The extent of the couple’s involvement in Petraeus’s headquarters was not known to senior White House and Pentagon officials involved in war policy, two of those officials said. More than a dozen senior military officers and civilian officials were interviewed for this article; most spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss personnel matters.

Petraeus, through a former aide, declined to comment for this article.

As war-zone volunteers, the Kagans were not bound by stringent rules that apply to military personnel and private contractors. They could raise concerns directly with Petraeus, instead of going through subordinate officers, and were free to speak their minds without repercussion.

Some military officers and civilian U.S. government employees in Kabul praised the couple’s contributions — one general noted that “they did the work of 20 intelligence analysts.” Others expressed deep unease about their activities in the headquarters, particularly because of their affiliations and advocacy in Washington.

Fred Kagan, who works at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, was one of the intellectual architects of President George W. Bush’s troop surge in Iraq and has sided with the Republican Party on many national security issues. Kim Kagan runs the Institute for the Study of War, which favors an aggressive U.S. foreign policy. The Kagans supported President Obama’s decision to order a surge in Afghanistan, but they later broke with the White House on the subject of troop reductions. Both argue against any significant drawdown in forces there next year.

Petraeus’s successor, Gen. John R. Allen, allowed the Kagans to stay at the headquarters for his first few months on the job last year and permitted them to return for two additional short visits. After the couple’s most recent trip in September, they provided a briefing on the war and other foreign policy matters to the Republican vice-presidential candidate, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin.

The Kagans said they continued to receive salaries from their think tanks while in Afghanistan. Kim Kagan’s institute is funded in part by large defense contractors. During Petraeus’s tenure in Kabul, she sent out a letter soliciting contributions so the organization could continue its military work, according to two people who saw the letter.

On Aug. 8, 2011, a month after he relinquished command in Afghanistan to take over at the CIA, Petraeus spoke at the institute’s first “President’s Circle” dinner, where he accepted an award from Kim Kagan. To join the President’s Circle, individuals must contribute at least $10,000 a year. The private event, held at the Newseum in Washington, also drew executives from defense contractors who fund the institute.

“What the Kagans do is they grade my work on a daily basis,” Petraeus said, prompting chortles from the audience. “There’s some suspicion that there’s a hand up my back, and it makes my lips talk, and it’s operated by one of the Doctors Kagan.”

Now, why would we think that?

What an interesting turn of phrase.

Hopefully, we will be getting more on this... in the meantime, read the entire investigative piece by the Washington Post, which is stellar.

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Paul Krugman on the election

In a piece boldly titled SOCIALISM! in the New York Times, Paul Krugman writes:

I have to say, the gnashing of teeth and rending of garments on the right comes as a surprise. We knew that they would be upset; but the extent to which they were really, truly unprepared for the obvious possibility that Obama would be reelected is remarkable.

...

One thing that caught my eye, in particular, has been the wailing that Americans have turned socialist. (Conservatives haven’t failed America — America has failed conservatives!) Thus John Hinderaker of 'Bush is a genius' fame declares--

To me, the most telling incident of the campaign season was a poll that found that among young Americans, socialism enjoys a higher favorability rating than free enterprise. How can this possibly be, given the catastrophic failure of socialism, and the corresponding success of free enterprise, throughout history? The answer is that conservatives have entirely lost control over the culture.

Oddly, he doesn’t even seem to consider the more obvious possibility: after decades in which right-wingers have attacked long-established institutions — Social Security, progressive taxation, unemployment insurance — as “socialism”, a lot of young people now believe them, and think that this “socialism” thing really isn’t so bad.

As for me, I am glad I didn't scrub off those OBAMA 08 bumper stickers from days gone by.

I rather enjoy the dirty looks and grim countenances I see this week in my rear-view mirror.

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I know exactly what she means...

Pundits are describing 4-year-old Abigael Evans as an "internet sensation"--after her mother posted her endearing cries for mercy, correctly echoing all of our deepest feelings!

Tired of Bronco Bamma and Mitt Romney



Viewed almost 12 million times, Abigael wins the DEAD AIR prize for sincerity, during this 2012 election.

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Jill Stein for president

Greenville Greens expressing ourselves, earlier today in downtown Greenville.

Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein is attempting to raise $16,000 by midnight tonight.

Compared to Barack Obama's one billion dollars (the highest amount that any presidential candidate has ever raised) and Romney's $881 million (and climbing rapidly), it seems like a mere pittance, doesn't it?

So if you have a few bucks, send it Jill's way.

I don't, but I figure this is one way I can help.

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Odds and Sods: Final debate edition

Talented Jill Andrews at Fall for Greenville, last Sunday.









Admittedly, I haven't been writing about the debates, because I find the entire spectacle depressing. (I have been dutifully covering them on the weekly radio show, which of course you have been listening to!) I have a hard time taking these things seriously... all that pacing around the stage during the last debate, made me nostalgic for Johnny Carson, or anybody else who knew how to freaking STAND STILL on a stage and still command the attention of an audience.

Are people now so accustomed to razzle-dazzle, special effects and music videos, that we have to turn somersaults and cartwheels to keep them engaged?

Tonight is the much-heralded "last debate" between the two major candidates. Only TWO candidates allowed, even though there are others. Not included: Green Party candidate Jill Stein (whom I have interviewed on my show), Justice Party nominee Rocky Anderson, Libertarian Party nominee (and former New Mexico governor) Gary Johnson, Constitution Party nominee Virgil Goode and Peace and Freedom Party nominee Rosanne Barr. (Biographical aside: Your humble narrator was registered as a member of the Peace and Freedom Party while a resident of California.)

I'm sure there are countless others, but these are the best-known of the 'minor' candidates.

To his credit, Gary Johnson has filed a lawsuit against the Commission on Presidential Debates, protesting his exclusion:

On Friday, the Libertarian presidential ticket of former New Mexico governor Gary Johnson and former California Superior Court judge Jim Gray filed another lawsuit against the Commission on Presidential Debates to attempt to force their way into the foreign policy debate tonight.

This lawsuit argues that Gary Johnson has met the 15% polling requirement for inclusion in the debates because polls that have included only President Obama and Gov. Johnson have showed Johnson with much more than 15% support. This is because polls that exclude the name of one candidate (Republican nominee Mitt Romney) should be just as valid as polls that exclude the name of another candidate (Johnson).

Good luck with that, Governor... but I think we all know how that is going to shake out.

It should be noted that Jill Stein has also filed a similar lawsuit, after her arrest last week in Hempstead, New York:

Last week Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein was arrested, along with VP candidate Cheri Honkala, attempting to get into the presidential debates in Hempstead, New York. This week her fight continues with a lawsuit filed today against the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD), claiming that the CPD, Democratic National Committee, and Republican National Committee, together with the Federal Election Commission and Lynn University, had deprived her of her constitutional rights to due process, equal protection, and free speech, as well as her statutorily protected civil rights.

Free And Equal will be hosting a debate of several 'minor' candidates, tomorrow in Chicago. Ironically, no American networks will be covering this debate, but Al Jazeera and Russia Today will be covering it! (Larry King will be moderating.)

Meanwhile: In this corner, the living fulfillment of the White Horse Prophecy--Mittens Romney!!! And in this corner, the current leader of these great United States (and reigning champ)--Barack Hussein Obama!!!! (((huzzahs, whistles, screams, applause, etc)))

I usually end up watching just to see if someone screws up... I will never forget the hugely-entertaining Rick Perry moment of last November's primary debate. I am heartily wishing for one of those; Romney's humorous "binders of women" came awfully close.

Stay tuned, sports fans.

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Our plucky heroine at the 4th annual Voices Against Violence event, brought to you by the awesome Traci Young Fant and Think2xTwice.org.

Along these lines, I'd like to share this thoughtful piece by Lionel Foster, titled Freeing Young Men from the Trap of Aggression.

An article about the new trend of "gang sweeps": 'New Jim Crow' or Public Safety? Check the comments, too.

~*~

Comment on a recent affirmative action thread at Alas, A Blog, from (someone named) nobody, really:

I recently read an analysis of polling data comparing this [racial] sense of grievance to abortion rights. Popular wisdom says that abortion rights are a controversial issue politically, driving certain white working-class people from the Democratic Party. But polls regularly show that most Americans, most white working class Americans, most white Catholic working-class Americans, etc. … favor abortion rights. Rather, the data suggests that white working class people are driven away from the Democrats by the latent perception that government is intervening to help undeserving OTHERS – others at home, others abroad. This was the core of Nixon’s Southern Strategy, and it remains the core of the Republican faith.

~*~

Paul Ryan withdraws endorsement of State Rep. Roger Rivard:

Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan and Gov. Scott Walker have dropped their endorsements of a Wisconsin lawmaker who said that his father had told him "some girls, they rape so easy" as a way to warn him that women could consent to sex but then later claim they hadn't.

In a further blow to state Rep. Roger Rivard's re-election bid, the operation committed to maintaining a Republican majority in the state Assembly on Thursday ended its financial support for Rivard.

Ryan pulled his support for Rivard, of Rice Lake, just hours after the Journal Sentinel reported on his rape comments Wednesday

Not to worry, Sen. Jim DeMint will likely endorse him.

In a recent piece on Rivard in Feministe, Jill Filipovic wrote an excellent summary of conservative views of gender. An excerpt:

The socially conservative worldview believes that men and women are fundamentally different — not just physically and emotionally and biologically, but in terms of what role they are supposed to fill in society. The conservative worldview sees a society in which these traditional, “natural” roles are filled as the best society. Conservatives believe that men are naturally aggressive and desiring of sex; in the best world, men are heads of households and responsible for action in the public sphere. They care for their families as financial supporters and physical protectors. But they have to be coerced into entering into that family model through a system in which they cannot get sex without marital commitment. Women, on the other hand, could take or leave sex, but they deeply desire monogamy, romantic love, commitment and support. Women are naturally subservient and desiring of stability; in the best world, women are helpmeets to their husbands and responsible for the private sphere — homemaking and caretaking of children and family. They are responsible for civilizing men, partially by withholding sex in order to get the marital commitment they want, and by establishing a nuclear family that is ultimately the best foundation for society.

In that view, sex is essentially a bartering chip. It’s not something that is good in and of itself. It’s good only when it’s used for both parties to get what they want in a socially-sanctioned way. It is something women “give” to men, once men give women what women want.

Sex as something that’s “given” — sex as a commodity — allows for sex to be constructed as something that can be taken.

...

Rape, in the conservative worldview, isn’t about violating consent or forcing sex on someone against their will; rape is about who the victim is and whether or not she plays by right-wing rules. It’s about whether she’s already given up her right to say no.

At the same time, as the conservative female is naturally chaste and subservient and refusing of sex unless she falls from grace, the conservative male ideal is aggressive, animalistic and virtually uncontrollable (except by a good woman, of course). Men, in the right-wing view, are going to tirelessly try to get sex. “We have forgotten that before we began calling this date rape,” says conservative activist and author of The Myth of Male Power Warren Farrell, “we called it exciting.”

~*~

More stuff:

CNBC Host Accuses Obama Of Manipulating Libya Facts To Cut Military Spending (Reality Check)

Three Reasons Why the Race Is So Close; Nine Reasons Why Obama Will Win (Huffington Post)

Voter Intimidation Billboards Will Be Pulled Down In Cleveland (Think Progress)

CNN will be live-blogging the debate tonight (CNN) If you flip channels compulsively, as I do, this is a good way to keep up!

Poll: Who will win the Presidential election? (The Good Men Project) Rates mention for the discussion in comment section.

Americans Way More Interested in Paul Ryan’s Naked, Heaving Chest Than His Budget (Jezebel) I've never doubted it.

And finally... Democracy Now will be EXPANDING THE DEBATE, hosting a debate between the aforementioned candidates Jill Stein and Rocky Anderson in about 2 minutes, at 8:30pm, extending to midnight. (Democracy Now) Yall come!

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Democratic Convention update

At left: Ten undocumented immigrants arrested at demonstrations outside the Democratic National Convention. This protest was the end-point of the UNDOCUBUS journey across the USA. Photo from the Village Voice.





The Democratic Convention continues, with few arrests--although there have been some. As I said previously, I was worried. There have been demonstrations, but nothing too disruptive.

Former President Bill Clinton wowed the audience last night, making folks nostalgic for Clintonian America; Democratic delegates openly confessed that they wish they could vote for him instead of Obama. (Transcript of Clinton's speech)

Mr Daisy dislikes the conventions and opted to watch DVDs of "The Office" instead. I think he prefers the old-style conventions, wherein the major networks actually broadcasted endless rules-discussions and other such wonky, procedural, political in-group activities. It somehow made you feel like you really were being represented and that your state's delegates, of both parties, were there to choose what was best for you. Now, it's mostly just razzle-dazzle and teleprompter-speeches, already market-tested for the masses. No surprises, and consequently, no fun.

Michelle Obama's speech was judged by the mass media as a big hit. The notable exception would be (big shocker) Fox News viewers. Daily Kos reported on the nasty racism in the comments on the Fox News website. No exaggeration either, I went over there and looked, and there are many more, and far worse. What particularly surprised me (but not really) is the fact that Fox webmasters did not close the thread down, and didn't seem at all worried by how bad this makes their viewers look. As I wrote in comments here, racism IS profitable, despite what some conservatives claim, i.e. a return to Jim Crow is somehow not possible in our (cough) racially-enlightened times. Of course it is. (And therefore, when anyone talks seriously about repealing the 1964 Civil Rights Act? They are either stone-cold racists, incurably naïve or simply NOT PAYING ATTENTION.)

As Ezra Klein noticed, the huge change in Democratic Party strategy has been: the Democrats are reclaiming Obamacare. YES, universal medical care IS a winning policy, and it is about time somebody said so. Several convention speakers have openly used the term "Obamacare"--which ironically started out as a Republican put-down. The new theme is, OBAMA CARES about you, as Mitt Romney only cares about the rich, like himself.

I guess we'll find out how well this works?

As for me, as my readers know, I love me some class warfare. When conservatives accusingly howl, "CLASS WARFARE!" as if its an insult, I never get it. When *I* am accused of it, I always say "Thank you!"--since of course, it's totally necessary and we certainly can't have enough of it. What is the intended insult, exactly? FAIRNESS IS GOOD. ROBIN HOOD WAS RIGHT. If you don't like that, move to Switzerland with the rest of the tax exiles, and take Mitt with you.

I hear he already has a bank account set up over there, so he and the misses will be just fine.

They can sublet their expensive houses. Most of us could support our whole families on the rents from the sublets, alone.

~*~

Yesterday, I enjoyed my 82nd viewing (give or take) of Suddenly, Last Summer. Just so amazing... and my previous post about the movie is here.

Speaking of which, its way past time to link myself! I often forget to do it.

[] I neglected to mention my own blogular accounts of protesting at the Democratic and Republican Conventions in 1980, one of which was linked on Wikipedia (((preen))), so here they are: Republican Convention in Detroit, Democratic Convention in New York.

[] And here is my official BACK TO SCHOOL POST, for all of you exhausted parents out there.

I continue to get positive and affirming feedback about this story, years after I first wrote it. I have received emails as well, lamenting similar GIANT SCHOOL PROJECTS on similar-sized ping-pong tables, sometimes offering detailed descriptions: One mom described a Confederate battlefield, complete with miniature Rebel-battle-flags and toy cannons; another teacher on a forum I visit, relating the same about a detailed Napoleonic display.

All of the (historically-accurate) uniforms carefully sewed onto the teeny-tiny soldiers, some with itsy-bitsy brass buttons.

The mind boggles.

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Happy Friday the 13th!

So who caught the All-Star game, wherein country singer Luke Bryan was caught sneaking a peak at the lyrics of the Star Spangled Banner, helpfully written on his hand?

Let he who has never forgotten the dumb lyrics, cast the first stone.

It's at (approx) the 36-second mark:



I say, leave Luke alone!

~*~

I have just returned from North Carolina, where the Romney vs Obama ads were running fast and furious (you should pardon expression) every few minutes; sometimes back-to-back. This is in major contrast to South Carolina, which the Democrats have apparently already conceded to Romney. But here in the upstate, we also get two different TV-stations from NC, and I guess we will be seeing the Asheville-area based commercials all the way to the finish line. And it's still July! They haven't even had a convention yet!

We are going to be inundated with it, folks... so gird your loins.

Last week, I taped my radio show for the first time, and today, will be doing it for the second time. I confess, knowing you can mess up and have it corrected (as handy as white-out!) is GREAT. I do not have the case of nerves I used to have beforehand.

Please tune in tomorrow at 9am, and thanks so much for listening.

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Years added to Daisy's life!

The health care act has been UPHELD by the US Supreme Court. I did not expect this and thought I would faint.

More:

Actual text of decision (San Francisco Chronicle)

Key Quotes from Ruling (Politico)

Obama health-care law: Supreme Court upholds it in entirety (Christian Science Monitor)

Supreme Court upholds health care mandate (CBS News)

Obama wins big in Supreme Court health care ruling (Politico)

Ginsburg: "Congress Followed Massachusetts' Lead" (Mother Jones)

Legal Scholars React: 'Many People Were Stunned' (NPR)

Why The Individual Mandate Is Not A ‘Massive Tax Hike’ On The Middle Class (Think Progress)

Conservatives Freak Out Over Health Care Decision (Mother Jones)

PHOTO: John Roberts’ Wikipedia Page Vandalized: ‘Chief Traitor (Talking Points Memo)

Obama praises Supreme Court health care ruling (Politico)

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Young evangelicals politically depart from their elders

Saturday's Greenville News article on young evangelicals suggests they have different priorities than their elders. Fascinating! We can make some important political converts in this group, I think.

Some excerpts from Ben Szobody's in-depth piece titled, No presidential candidate has excited young evangelicals:

It’s not the loudest group of voters, but the fate of the 2012 presidential race and even the future fortunes of the Republican Party may partly hinge on a swelling group of independents loosely defined as young evangelical Christians.

Polls and people in tune with the generation say many in the group find themselves politically adrift, amid a bitter campaign that so far features very few of their concerns.

In a shift that may seem radical in the framework of left-right politics, some voted for Barack Obama in 2008 and now support Ron Paul. They may have wanted to transcend partisan politics four years ago and now feel that pulling back on government is the best option left, say a sampling of voters and those who work with them.

The group doesn’t tend to vote in primaries, and the current field of Republicans is seldom touching on their vital subjects. But to lose their vote may mean to lose a generation for good, Christian and political figures say.

“I think a lot of young evangelicals are going to feel politically homeless,” said Tim King, communications director for the social justice group Sojourners who himself fits the demographic.

For his generation, King said abortion matters but the concern for children now includes issues such as child trafficking, mercury levels that affect fetuses, the spread of AIDS and clean water access.

These problems may rope in some big political solutions: social safety nets, churches doing more and a focus on a person’s individual behavior.

This is fabulous news!

One of the problems with young evangelicals that I have noticed, is an easily-offended sensibility. Kids from evangelical and/or home-schooled backgrounds (and due to Bob Jones University, a home-schooler hub, we have a PARCEL of them represented locally, so I know whereof I speak) have been raised in a sequestered environment. They are not allowed to watch TV at BJU, for example; similarly, lots of the home-schooled kids have been extremely overprotected. When they get out into the real world, it can be overwhelming and confusing.

I see this disparity between the young and old evangelicals, as resulting from their experiences in being in sudden contact with liberal Christians, non-Christians and mass-culture in general. The realizations come fast and furious: Wait, how can we be anti-abortion without caring about what actually happens to children after they are born? This starts them thinking in all kinds of new political ways, as they see what Cardinal Bernardin called "the seamless garment"--the concept that "life issues" include war, poverty, the environment, immigration and other global concerns.

Across the nation this week, 53 percent of Republicans were more enthusiastic about voting than usual, compared to 45 percent of Democrats, Gallup reported. But among voters ages 18 to 29, enthusiasm fell by 28 percent since 2008, and by 21 percent among 30- to 49-year-olds.

There’s been little political polling since 2008 focused on young Christians in particular, though a new book by Barna Group President David Kinnaman describes the top reasons many are veering from traditional churches and their positions.

Nearly a quarter of 18- to 29-year olds said Christians “demonize everything outside the church,” while 22 percent said the church is “ignoring the problems of the real world.”

It’s not necessarily that young Christians are apathetic, or less concerned about moral causes than their parents, or disillusioned after voting for Obama, say voters themselves and those attentive to their concerns.

Instead, they say many have a much broader view of how to change society after the Religious Right generation that preceded them. Politics is just a piece, and abortion is just one of the important social issues in play.

“The reality is, there are a lot of people who are actually thinking more broadly about these concerns,” said Paul Blumer, an active churchgoer, owner of Streetside Catering and president of Food for Life, a ministry that feeds the homeless at Triune Mercy Center near downtown Greenville.

He’s frustrated with his voting options but is part of a segment of young Christians who see the poor as their urgent, long-ignored cause. He’s currently trying to get a homeless man and his three children out of a hotel and into a home with another family.

“Here’s what people said to me when I took this on,” Blumer said. “‘You better call DSS.’ And I thought, what is going on with us? Why is it that we continue this constant shrugging of our responsibility as Christians off to government agencies, putting our trust in them as if they will perform the duties that will save these children’s lives?”

Among the current GOP candidates, Blumer likes Ron Paul’s libertarianism but knows he’s unlikely to win and dislikes the way Paul himself is treated as a savior.

“The Republican Party has terrible problems in this area,” said Brent Nelsen, a political science professor at Furman University, a former statewide Republican candidate for office and a founding member of Redeemer Presbyterian Church. “They’re not appealing to the demographics that are growing.”

This includes both young and Hispanic voters, Nelsen said, noting that Obama retains a big advantage among youths, though the Republican Party has recovered some of them since 2008.

The Republican candidates for president, by questioning Obama’s theology or making clear appeals on traditional moral grounds, are talking to “old-school” conservatives who vote in primary elections, he said.

Meanwhile, the “peace-and-justice” movement in evangelical churches is growing, and voting habits tend to lock in during a person’s younger years, Nelsen and King said.

“We’re not talking about the end of the Republican Party as we know it,” he said, adding that the demographic is still relatively small.

Still, if Republicans don’t address what young Christians care about — such as human trafficking or AIDS in Africa — both Nelsen and King say the party risks losing them for good.

Daisy winks, that might not be such a bad thing. Some of us think their dogmatic conservativism may have an unintended positive benefit: they will drive the kids away and ultimately self-destruct. (Some already can't get away fast enough.)

Szobody claims these young people have "a different view of how Christians interact with culture.":

King lays out the timeline this way: The social gospel movement of the 1920s and 1930s aimed at transforming institutions, which was followed by an emphasis on saving individual souls, and then the Religious Right generation sought to use politics as a tool. Preserving prayer in schools, the Ten Commandments in courthouses and “under God” in the pledge while fighting abortion and gay marriage were their causes.

Now, King describes a Christian generation that sees everything from art to writing to building stronger neighborhoods as ways to change others’ view of the world and be a witness for Christ. This effort encompasses environmental concerns, a compassionate approach to immigration and a focus on poverty.

This broader set of interests means that young Christians are often very conservative on the matter of abortion, for instance, but don’t vote on that single issue, King said. They might urge a young woman not to have an abortion, but then question whether the church is prepared to support her and her child.

It’s not a generation exposed to major social movements like the civil rights effort, but he said Occupy Wall Street seems to have hit this nerve: For the first time, they were pushing a cause, their friends were on the news and the world was paying attention.

For the Christians in the crowd, King said a shift from Obama in 2008 to Paul this year isn’t as large as it may seem. They believe Paul is the guy who would end the wars, and is serious about ending the collusion between big business and government — issues Obama underscored in the last election.

Nelsen knows friends who have gone from Obama to Paul, and he said they thought Obama favored personal freedoms but see his actions in office as reliant on the state. That makes Paul the new choice.

Blumer’s view is decidedly libertarian, and he blames “RINOs”* for failing to take up important social causes. In the general election, he said he may write in Paul’s name, or “Jesus Christ.”

Given the options, it’s always a risk that young Christians may not vote, King said.

Still, he said it’s no accident that after 40,000 college students raised $3.3 million to fight modern-day slavery at a January conference in Atlanta, Obama mentioned the effort in his remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast.

“President Obama has an opportunity to make the case, but it’s not a done deal,” he said.

Among the youth overall, Obama currently polls well ahead of both Santorum and Mitt Romney.

Meanwhile, Republicans have to think to the future, Nelsen said, noting the conservative student groups on Furman’s campus have split into Republican and libertarian camps.

“The young people are up for grabs, ideologically, and I don’t think either party has figured out how they’re going to handle this libertarian wave,” he said.

As I said, fascinating. Hoping some of the disaffected will show up at our Occupy events... hey, we got MOVIES, yall!
We hope to see some of you politically-aware young evangelicals. Your input and participation is welcome!

Stay tuned, sports fans.

*RINO= Republican In Name Only. (They refer to libertarians and liberals.)

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Bring Joe-Bob back to the Drive-In, and other horrifying updates

Joe-Bob Goes to The Drive-In was the name of Joe Bob Briggs' old B-movie column in the Dallas Morning Herald. These reviews were compiled into a very entertaining book by the same name. The book's sequel was titled, of course, Joe-Bob goes back to the drive-in (introduction by Wayne Newton). Both books are totally indispensable and absolutely necessary for any serious trash-culture fan!

Joe-Bob Briggs was really John Bloom, and with his TEXAS MONTHLY writing partner, Jim Atkinson, wrote a very good true-crime account of one woman killing another with an axe. I sure never forgot THAT one! (Aside: An Amazon reader informs us that this woman, Candy Montgomery, is now a nurse in Atlanta... remind me never to go to the hospital in Georgia, for any reason.) He hosted his own TV show for awhile: Joe-Bob's Drive-In Theater. This was one of the great treasures of the 90s, my friends. You may also recall Joe-Bob as the host of the more mainstream 90s cable-show MonsterVision, which brought us some far-out B-movie classics, such as the inimitable Basket Case.

Joe-Bob has been in a few movies himself, and was even in the mini-series of THE STAND, playing a character named Deputy Joe-Bob Brentwood (attesting to Stephen King's excellent B-movie sensibilities). He was also in Martin Scorcese's Casino, one of my favorite movies, where you may remember him getting fired by Robert DeNiro and hollering in protest, "This is not the way to treat people!" (I remember thinking, is that Joe-Bob Briggs he is firing????) Unfortunately, his scenes were deleted from Texas Chainsaw Massacre II, which I am sure upset him terribly.

My question: WHERE is the contemporary Joe-Bob? Why are we Joe-Bobless? It doesn't seem fair that we have no trash-movie impresario on regular TV these days. (Note: I'm sure one of the millions of satellite channels has this kind of programming, but I refer to mass-market TV.) I grew up with horror movies hosted by the incomparable Ghoulardi of Cleveland, and I love that kinda stuff.

Come back, Joe-Bob!!! And no offense, but you can leave your politics back in Texas. Nonetheless, if I have to put up with Libertarian jabber to get some decent B-movies, I am willing to do that.

~*~

Some more stuff:

:: Conspiracy theories! As an ex-Yippie, I eat em for breakfast. (I also figured this would go well with Joe-Bob.) Bin Laden Death Deemed Murder of CIA Case Officer as 9/11 Coverup:

President George W. Bush knew Osama bin Laden was a CIA agent and in no way ever involved in 9/11. He knew bin Laden personally from family visits and knew bin Laden had been to the White House while living in the US under the cover name of “Tim Osmon.”

This has been verified by CIA officials.

It has? Well, color me surprised.

I definitely need to hear more about this one.

:: Monica runs a video from Ellen DeGeneres, calling out the "One Million Moms" (actually only 40,000) who have targeted her as a gay spokesperson for JC Penneys. (I also thought homophobes go well with horror movies, so that is the reason the link goes here.)

:: And finally, from Politico: The political transformation of Barack Obama, which has most assuredly been horrifying.

Add your own, play along at home.

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Onward and Upward

At left: Occupy Greenville has kept our plucky heroine from dissolving into hopelessness during her long period of unemployment this year: THREE CHEERS FOR THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT, which has restored many folks' faith in America.

~*~

I used to wonder why people (usually women) deleted their blogs. No longer. I get it now.

As net-denizens Google various religious-and-Christmas-oriented-posts I have written over the past four-and-a-half years, I feel theologically and emotionally bereft. I was so certain, and now I am not.

Or rather, I am certain that uncertainty is the state of humanity. I no longer unequivocally declare that particular existential points of dogma are true, except to say, this is what I feel right now. This is what I believe is true right now.

And this is, in fact, what we are always saying, we just don't seem to realize that our personal truths collide over time. We re-arrange the biography to make our wildly different, disparate truths make sense. But they simply don't.

This is because we are not the same people we were.

The person that started this blog is me, yet it is another me, a past-me. I do not agree with everything the past-me wrote, in fact, I wince at a good deal of it. I can understand why people feel the need to delete that which makes them embarrassed and makes them wince. And women, specifically, can find this nearly intolerable. On the above-linked thread, Feminist Avatar wrote:

I almost deleted my blog as I was fed up with discussions going on in my online community, which I disagreed with and felt had been done so many times before, with no resolution. And, my gut response was- get out of here- and I think I saw leaving my blog up as leaving a part of myself 'there'; in that conversation, even tho' I wasn't and hadn't posted in ages.

A wiser person than me once said that women were more reluctant to 'let go of the authorial signature' than men (that is to stop owning their words- seeing cultural products as a creation of society and context rather than individuals), because they had only recently won the right to own them in the first place (ie women's right to a public voice is historically new and hard won). Perhaps, as a result, when we need to walk away from particular online communities or just the internet as a time suck, we feel we can't leave something of ourselves there- we can't stop owning our words (even if they may be out of date or not where we are any more). And perhaps, because of that sense of ownership, if we move beyond those ideas or no longer agree with them, we also can't leave them out there, as it is no longer us.

Yes, I understand that, as well as the Buddhist concept of impermanence.

~*~

I nearly titled this post "Can Ron Paul win the Iowa primary?" and then thought the better of it. Nah. But I am once again voting strategically for the good doctor, as I did in the last South Carolina Republican primary four years ago.

I heartily recommend Conor Friedersdorf's piece in The Atlantic, titled Grappling With Ron Paul's Racist Newsletters--currently up to a whopping 633 comments. The money quotes:

Do I think that Paul wrote the offending newsletters? I do not. Their style and racially bigoted philosophy is so starkly different from anything he has publicly espoused during his long career in public life -- and he is so forthright and uncensored in his pronouncements, even when they depart from mainstream or politically correct opinion -- that I'd wager substantially against his authorship if Las Vegas took such bets. Did I mention how bad some of the newsletters are? It's a level of bigotry that would be exceptionally difficult for a longtime public figure to hide.

For that reason, I cannot agree with [The Weekly Standard's Jamie] Kirchick when he concludes that "Ron Paul is not the plain-speaking antiwar activist his supporters believe they are backing -- but rather a member in good standing of some of the oldest and ugliest traditions in American politics."

On the other hand, it doesn't seem credible that Paul was unaware of who wrote the execrable newsletters, and although almost a million dollars per year in revenue is a substantial incentive to look away from despicable content, having done so was at minimum an act of gross negligence and at worst an act of deep corruption. Indeed, Paul himself has acknowledged that he "bears moral responsibility" for the content.

Given its odiousness that is no small thing.

For the record, I certainly agree. I also agree with this quote--although regular readers might recall that as a true believer, I defended both Jeremiah Wright AND Bill Ayers:

For me, the disconnect between the Ron Paul newsletters, which make me sick, and Paul's words and actions in public life, which I often admire, put me in mind of the way I reacted when candidate Barack Obama was found to associate with Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers, both of whom had said execrable things. I couldn't defend any of it. But I could never get exercised about the association in exactly the way that writers like Victor Davis Hanson wanted, because it seemed totally implausible that if Obama was elected he would turn out to secretly share the convictions of the Weather Underground, or hope for God to damn America. It always seemed to me that those relationships were the unsavory product of personal ambition. I don't mean to suggest that the two circumstances are entirely analogous, but I do find it hard to believe that if Paul were elected, he'd turn out to be a secret racist, implement policies that targeted minorities, or drum up support by giving speeches with hateful rhetoric.

And then, he makes the points I wish I had been smart enough to make, says the things I wish I had been smart enough to write. YES!:

[Congressman Ron Paul] has a long history of doing what he says when elected, and no more.

"How could you vote for someone who..."

Isn't that a thorny formulation? I'm sometimes drawn to it. And yet. We're all choosing among a deeply compromised pool of candidates, at least when the field is narrowed to folks who poll above 5 percent. Put it this way. How can you vote for someone who wages an undeclared drone war that kills scores of Pakistani children? Or someone who righteously insisted that indefinite detention is an illegitimate transgression against our civilizational values, and proceeded to support that very practice once he was elected? How can you vote for someone who has claimed to be deeply convicted about abortion on both sides of the issue, constantly misrepresents his record, and demagogues important matters of foreign policy at every opportunity? Or someone who suggests a religious minority group should be discriminated against? Or who insists that even given the benefit of hindsight, the Iraq War was a just and prudent one?

And yet many of you, Republicans and Democrats, will do just that -- just as you and I have voted for a long line of past presidents who've deliberately pursued policies of questionable-at-best morality.

In voting for "the lesser of two evils," there is still evil there -- we're just better at ignoring certain kinds in this fallen world. A national security policy that results in the regular deaths of innocent foreigners in order to maybe make us marginally safer from terrorism is one evil we are very good at ignoring.

Prison rape is an evil we're even better at ignoring.

It is a wonderful thing that Americans are usually unable to ignore the evil of outright racism. It hasn't always been so. The change is a triumph. But important as rhetorical issues of race and ethnicity are in America, we're by necessity choosing the lesser of two -- or three or seven -- evils when we pick a candidate. And so it's worth complicating the moral picture with some questions we don't normally consider when we talk about race.

For example: What American policy most hurts people who'd be a minority group in this country? I'd say cluster bombs, missiles and bullets that inadvertently kill them while we try to kill terrorists or convert tribal or sectarian societies into democracies. Or perhaps an even graver harm is done by the subsidies we give to agribusinesses, destroying Third World agricultural markets and opportunity. To think of the damage done over the decades by sugar dumping in Haiti alone! And isn't it uncomfortable to think about how race and nationality is implicated in the priority we assign to folks who suffer from the aforementioned policies? The policies aren't rooted in personal racism, like the lines in racist tracts -- sugar dumping is rooted in an amoral agricultural lobby that wants to enrich itself -- yet it's hard to imagine such policies would persist as uncontroversially if "people like us" were the victims.

In the U.S., the War on Drugs arguably does the most grave damage to poor communities, especially in black and Latino neighborhoods, where the majority of arrests take place, though whites use drugs more often. The greatest threat to an ethnic minority in the United States isn't that doctrinaire libertarians are going to reverse the Civil Rights Act -- it's that Muslim Americans or immigrants are going to be held without trial in the aftermath of a future terrorist attack because we've allowed our and their civil liberties to erode.

Were it 1964, I'd never vote for Paul, precisely because my desire to protect and expand liberty would've placed the highest priority on the passage of the Civil Rights Act. Paul once said in a speech that "the forced integration dictated by the Civil Rights Act of 1964 increased racial tensions while diminishing individual liberty," despite the fact that it clearly enhanced the individual liberty of blacks, the group the state was most implicated in transgressing against.

But it is not 1964. Other injustices better define our times. In 2012, when accused terrorists are held indefinitely without charges or trial, and folks accused of drug possession have their doors broken down by flash-grenade wielding SWAT teams in no-knock raids, Paul would arguably protect the rights of racial, religious or ethnic minority groups better than Obama, regardless of whether Paul is now or ever was a racist, and irrespective of the fact that Obama, as the first black president, has in some ways transformed Americans' thinking on race. (LBJ, who signed the Civil Rights Act, was not know for his personal progressivism on race or women's rights, but he nonetheless backed policies that had powerful consequences for women and minorities).

What I want Paul detractors to confront is that he alone, among viable candidates, favors reforming certain atrocious policies, including policies that explicitly target ethnic and religious minorities. And that, appalling as it is, every candidate in 2012 who has polled above 10 percent is complicit in some heinous policy or action or association. Paul's association with racist newsletters is a serious moral failing, and even so, it doesn't save us from making a fraught moral judgment about whether or not to support his candidacy, even if we're judging by the single metric of protecting racial or ethnic minority groups, because when it comes to America's most racist or racially fraught policies, Paul is arguably on the right side of all of them.

Read it all, and at least a few of the hundreds of brawling comments, well worth your while if you care about the Republican primary and the next election.

~*~

Check out our show tomorrow, where we will be doing a year-end round-up. In upstate South Carolina, join us at 9am on WFIS radio, 1600 AM and/or 94.9 FM on your radio dial. We have online streaming, so drop by.

And winding up with some holiday tackiness/nostalgia. At left: The Great Southern Shopping Center in Columbus, Ohio, my hometown. As you can see by the cars, this photo was probably taken some time in the early-to-mid 60s, and certainly, my fondest Christmas-shopping memories come from this period. (This shopping center was only a short distance from one of my very favorite and beloved Drive-In movie theatres, which I know I have rhapsodized about here before.)

The shopping center featured the SEVEN WONDERS OF THE WORLD in miniature, and we used to walk around them as kids, taking photos and gawking as if they were real. Surely, this was as close as most of us were ever going to get. My absolute favorite was the Taj Mahal, which apparently even had real water for awhile, but mostly I remember dried-up water with dirt and leaves in it. Unfortunately, my dogged net-searches could NOT bring up the Taj Mahal or Eiffel Tower, presented right alongside Woolworth's and hardware stores and everything else. At Christmas time, the tacky Christmas lights and faux-evergreens were draped around the SEVEN WONDERS OF THE WORLD, and we thought it was the greatest thing we had ever seen.

Confession: I still think it was, but I have since learned how uncool it is to say so.

Thanks to Otherstream for the photo of little-Pisa, which brought back a nice Christmas memory.

PS: And if you have never read Truman Capote's amazingly wonderful A CHRISTMAS MEMORY, you should. Too wonderful for words, but get out those kleenex.

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